


Wrecks and Repairs

by Vera (Vera_DragonMuse)



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-05
Updated: 2010-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-21 02:14:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera_DragonMuse/pseuds/Vera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first and only time Wash met his mother, he was fourteen years old. Written for Round One, Challenge Three of Last Author Standing: Jossverse</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wrecks and Repairs

The first and only time Wash met his mother, he was fourteen years old. The last of rays of pale sun were retreating across the floor of his father’s shop. He sat cross legged on a broken armchair, trying to piece back together an antique wave machine when the door chime rang.

“Just a minute!”

He crossed through the beaded curtain to the counter, ready with a friendly customer service smile.

The waiting woman was tall and not particularly pretty. Her nose was too pointed, her eyes set too close together and her lips pinched thin. A shabby brown leather coat encased her slender frame. There was no spark of recognition or instant tears of joy. She could have been any beaten down merc or pilot on their way from one hole in the wall planet to another.

“Welcome to Washburne’s Wrecks and Repair Shack. How can I help you?” He recited.

“Is your father here?” Her voice was raspy as if long unused.

“He’ll be back in an hour. Is there something I can help you with meantime?”

She visibly relaxed and looked him over slowly. He shifted uncomfortably.

“You look just like you father.”

“I...who are you?” He started to reach under the counter to grope for the stun gun they kept hidden there.

“I’m your mother.”

His hand fell away from the gun.

When he was younger, he had imagined hearing those words many times. Sometimes he dreamed of a soft voice and a kiss on his forehead. Over time, he’d learned to ignore this hole in his life and had nearly managed to forget entirely what was missing. Now, he squinted trying to find his face in hers. Now he felt the old longing rise up in his chest, a moment composed entirely of want.

“I shouldn’t be here. But I was so close, I would never forgive myself for not looking in on you. I’m...your father told me not to come back.” She frowned.

“Dad said that?” He couldn’t picture his gentle father with whom he shared his hair color, a preference for bad jokes and passion for flying machines, doing any such thing. “Why?”

“It’s not safe.” She smiled, fleeting and nervous just as he did when put on the spot. “When I got pregnant with you, I was just starting to find out.... What did he tell you?”

“Not much.” His father never spoke of her at all. Just that she had left them and it was for the best. They got on well enough just the two of them, didn’t they?

“There’s a war coming. Not this year. Maybe not for another five years.” Her voice shook with intensity. “I’ve been working my whole life to make sure it happens.”

“Why?” He gripped the counter, trying to regain his mental footing.

“Because the Alliance is not the peaceful protector everyone believes it to be. When you were born, I couldn’t sit idly by anymore. Your father never understood and maybe you never will either, but I had to change the world for you.”

“I like the world the way it is.”

“For now.” She leaned across the counter and covered one of his hands with her own. They had the same rounded fingertips and bitten nails. “You don’t have to believe me or agree with me, but I want you to know that I left to make the world better for you.”

“I-”

Outside, someone yelled and she started violently.

“I have to go. The last time I spoke with your father, he said you liked these.” She fumbled in her jacket and produced an ill-wrapped bundle. “That was a long time ago. You’re too old for them now. I didn’t have time to get you anything else.”

“Don’t leave.” He accepted the worn package, but didn’t release her hand.

“I can’t stay.” She leaned all the way over the counter and tenderly kissed his forehead. “I love you.”

The bells above the shop door rang out her sudden absence.

Trembling, he ripped the tape off slowly off the package as if the contents might explode. Inside there was a plastic bag grown cloudy with passing years. It was filled with plastic dinosaurs.

It would be years from that afternoon that he pieced together what her long brown coat and few trembling words meant. He would already be halfway through his training as a pilot when the first stirrings of the rebellion trickled to the ears of the general population. He searched the cortex in vain for her, even hiring Jonah (not yet Mr. Universe) to look, but came up empty. It was as if she had walked out of the shop and been swallowed up by the revolution.

Once, even more years hence, before he had kissed her, he asked Zoe if she had ever met another rebel, tall and thin and pinched. Zoe hadn’t remembered anyone of the sort, but she’d laid a hand on his shoulder and asked him no questions. It felt immeasurably kind and tender. He decided then that he would marry her.

But all that was years ahead. That lonely, cloudy afternoon, he had shifted through the pile of plastic dinosaurs and arranged them over and over again like they held the key to the tangle of grief, pride and love his mother had left in her wake.


End file.
